Tag Archives: Tech

Be Stupidly Magnetic

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Just about a year ago, Satya Patel posted a piece which I recently reread about raising money. His thesis, namely that making your audience really believe, is the key dynamic in raising funds. Among his main points, Patel points to the fact that emotion is a major factor for investing VC’s, and that emotional connection to a product, service or team can many times be what attracts their attention. This “emotional resonance” as Patel puts it, is what creates the belief; not only in VC’s, but I would venture so far to say in customers as well.

Emotional resonance is a human calculation. Despite the fact that some people like to think that they can “program” and predict the emotions and reactions of others, this is rarely (if ever) true. Humans are the very definition of unpredictable, and to think that you can “game” someone’s reactions is pure hubris.

Community Is the Angel of Loyalty and Second Chances

Patel’s post examines the “emotional resonance” dynamic from three angles within the context of fundraising, particularly at the seed level. The first, and by far most important of these, is the people angle. People are what your company is made up of, and what you build your community around.

Belief in a company’s prospects in the end comes down to the people running it and building it. It comes down to how they see (or don’t see) themselves and their customers. Community is the angel of loyalty and second chances; when something goes wrong (and many, many things inevitably will), community is the thing that will keep your wheels turning long enough to get past the potholes.

Arguably the best investment any team and/or company can make is in the development of their communal dynamics. In people-based industries like music, media, social, messaging, and even news, if your community sucks, you’re dead (Ello seems to come to mind here). When you’ve built a community that rallies around your team and your product/service, people take note, and it’s a lot easier to make them believe. Dynamic, loyal communities of people are magnetic, and groups of disengaged, fly-by-night users are not, it’s that simple. Be magnetic. Be so magnetic that people can’t stand not to be around you.

Potential Is a Human Calculation

The second point which Patel brings up is potential. Potential is a little more intricate because it’s based so much on the people factor. As per Patel’s argument, make VC’s (or anybody) feel that they need to be a part of the problem you’re solving. This in effect is an extension of the first point, as it’s a similar human calculation, understanding what types of things the VC/person identifies with. How do they see themselves outside the office, and what excites them? Identify the VC’s who will look at your company and get that fire in their belly. In the case of music, for example, find those people who are true fans. The ones who go to concerts, make musical analogies, and wanted to be rock stars at some point in their lives. Find the people who speak your language, that’s the real potential. Some people call this “targeting” but I just think of it as “who do I want to go to a concert with and introduce to the band afterwards.”

Proof and Magnetism

Proof is the last thing Patel brings up. He notes that as an early stage company you won’t have it anyway, so just accept that and move on. Proof is demonstrated by belief. Belief is exhibited less by numbers and more by people and emotional resonance. It’s a calculation that even if the numbers don’t look good, that person or team can figure out a way out of the quagmire. Magnetism is the child of positivity, vision, and tenacity. It is so attractive precisely because it creates in people’s minds a sort of fabricated exclusivity; a feeling that if they’re not the ones to surround you then it will be someone else, and that in itself is an attractive trait. Be stupidly magnetic, the rest will follow.

Independent Music Is Big. Really, Really Big.

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PC Gaming Is Just Like Independent Music

Chris Dixon’s article yesterday discussed the trends that media is experiencing in the digital age. While his article focuses mostly on the gaming industry, it also heavily references the music industry, drawing numerous parallels and comparisons throughout the piece. Since I’m not much of a gamer, the music-related aspects of the post fascinate me because:

  1. They so closely mirror those in the gaming industry, which I find intriguing and even somewhat surprising, and
  2. Because Dixon is exactly on-point in his dissection of them.

Regarding the first point, it’s almost eerie how broad Dixon’s thesis could have been, were one to read the piece out of context. Of particular note are subtitles like “PC games are way bigger than you think[,]” which could easily say “independent music” instead of “PC games.” And it is way bigger. Way, way bigger.

Independent Music Is Way, Way Bigger Than You Think

Independent music, like PC gaming (it seems), is substantially bigger than many people initially realize, particularly if they’re only considering one part of “the music industry.” The “music industry” is a misnomer itself since it lends credence to the thought that there is a singular music industry in which to exist and do business. This is incorrect because there are in fact multiple paradigms that exist within the music universe, all of which operate according to very different rules. Independent music is a whole different world than major label music, and thus the opportunities that lie there do not necessarily mirror the opportunities that lie in the latter.

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Growth of independent music between 2003-2012; image courtesy of Techdirt

The stark reality is that independent music cannot be measured according to the traditional metrics. Unlike major label material, independent music cannot be measured and calculated metrically based on chart success, album copies sold (physical or digital), or video hits. Independent music extends to places major label music never touches: to the garage of the punk band in Chicago, the coffee house performance of the singer in London, the bedroom demo of the multi-instrumentalist in Melbourne, and the piano jazz bar in Amsterdam. As a result, the sheer number of artists that exist (and are popping up every day) is staggering.

The Problem with the “Walled-Garden”

As Dixon pointed out, where gaming wins is in providing endless choices for users, and relying on the dynamic of attention instead of scarcity. This is directly at odds with the current approach in most of the traditional music industry (in streaming especially) where the “walled-garden” approach is used as a means of obtaining exclusive rights to material on one service, and thus making it scarce or unavailable on all the other services. The notion here is that if you can garner enough scarce material, you’ll have something your competitors simply can’t lay their hands on.

The problem with this line of thinking is twofold:

  1. It doesn’t actually work, since material (major label or independent) inevitably finds it way off of solely one system and onto multiple systems; and
  2. It’s against the nature of music. Music is art, and the nature of art is to be seen, shared, engaged with, and shared again.

Music is freedom and expression, and to try and stifle that on one system is simultaneously useless and misguided. It’s misguided precisely because music is inherently social. Unlike movies or books, music has a unique live element which can be leveraged to the benefit of both the artists and their fans (both current and prospective). One of the fastest growing trends in independent music is for artists to alter their perspective of their own music: rather than looking at it solely as an end commodity for sale, now it’s becoming a mechanism for free marketing and advertising. It’s a means to an end, a way to get people to come out to shows, connect on a personal level in the live paradigm, and walk away feeling a direct identification with that artist.

What the major label industry really looks like; The Big Three

What the major label industry really looks like; The Big Three

Unfortunately, major labels have been less enthusiastic about this approach. As Dixon notes, they rely heavily on litigation and have effectively stayed focused on protecting their back catalog, looking backwards at the past with forlorn eyes rather than tasting the future.

Royalties Are the Emperor’s Clothes

The royalty system is a whole other monster, which I’ve tackled a number of times, and which I think is simply a chain to the past and nothing more. It doesn’t help artists the way they need to be helped, doesn’t make fans feel good about how artists are compensated, and just remains a massive headache for any music company, streaming or otherwise.

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Royalty Rates, Minimum Wage, and Reality; image courtesy of informationisbeautiful.net

Simply put, the royalty system is arguably the best example in media of the Emperor’s clothes: everyone keeps saying that we just need to find a way to make it work in the new age, when in reality there is no way to make it work in the new age. Arguably, it didn’t even work in previous decades; but it was the only real, scalable revenue system around, and thus became the industry standard.

In the post, Dixon quoted the post-mortem statement of Turntable.fm, which states that the Turntable team spent tons of cash on lawyers, tons of time trying to secure label deals, and ultimately that they didn’t heed the lessons of so many failed music startups. I’ll go so far as to argue that one of these mistakes (which founders continue to make) is buying into the old royalty-based system, and thus undercutting their own feet before even beginning the race.

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The music pipeline

The diagram above paints this picture, and if you look closely, you see that there are really only two entities who hold any significant amount of consistent power: the major labels and independent artists.

  • The former group essentially controls the lifeblood of dependent streaming services (like Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, and more recently SoundCloud), the payment to artists from the royalties collected, and the gatekeeping authority over the music to which the mainstream is exposed.
Major Label Percentage Ownerships of (some) Streaming Services

Major Label Percentage Ownerships of (some) Streaming Services; *(Beats has since been purchased and rolled into Apple Music)

  • Independent artists, however, control their own distribution, exposure, and revenues models. Because they’re not beholden to any one paradigm or other entity, they are free to explore a wide range of possibilities, and mix-and-match those that work best for them. In many cases, this is highly individualized; what works well for one artist doesn’t work at all for another, and vice versa.

Community. It’s All About Community.

Dixon nails it home in the latter paragraph on books, when he states:

From a legal perspective, some fanfiction could be seen as copyright or trademark infringement. From a business perspective, the book industry would be smart to learn from the PC gaming business. Instead of fighting over pieces of a shrinking pie, try to grow the pie by getting more people to read and write books.

This is exactly true for the music business too. Instead of looking to block remixes and free distribution models, music companies would be better off learning how to leverage those models for improved community building and engagement, particularly as music is so heavily impacted by live continuous interaction. Build the community around the artists, and fans will follow. From those core fans, new and more flexible revenue models arise. The future of music is democratization and community.

If you look at many of the companies that are winning in media/tech right now—companies like Medium, Twitch, Product Hunt (with Games, Books, and Podcasts), and BuzzFeed—you see that they have invested a substantial amount of time and energy in creating communities around their products and/or services. The Medium community writes about anything and everything, and communities on Product Hunt and Twitch are super sticky. And all of this is to say nothing of the Dixon’s crowdfunding point, which certainly has massive and positive implications for the music business moving forward.

Scarcity Is Obsolete, Democratization Wins

Dixon’s closing statement gives me chills:

The internet renders business models focused on scarcity and litigation obsolete. But as the PC gaming market shows, it also unlocks lucrative new business models, and lets creators connect with consumers in new and exciting ways.

It gives me chills because it’s so on-point with what’s happening in music. Dixon set out to write a post on gaming, but in the process he laid out precisely the dynamic that’s bubbling to the surface in the music universe. I can’t believe this is a coincidence. Art is art, its essence is sharing and engagement. Music and games are forms of art, and draw their life-force from the communal engagement that occurs between the creators and the consumers. It all comes back to community. Every time.

Support Systems Make Long Odds Targets to Hit, Not Walls to Avoid

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In another post this week, Hunter Walk wrote that the prospect (and indeed reality) of starting a company is hard. He referenced previous posts by Jason Calacanis and Paul Smith, both of whom wrote good posts on the kind of spine and drive you need to have in order to tough it out in this business. Both pieces were on point; Calacanis’ in particular struck a chord with me as it reminded me of how DIY punk you need to be in to work in the startup world.

Walk, however, brings something different to the table in his new post; he postulates how people from different backgrounds might have read the previous set of posts differently, and how they might have understood the points which Smith and Calacanis were making. Indeed, Walk strikes on this towards the end of his own piece, when he declares that something has been “gnawing” at him:

Starting a company—deciding to absorb that risk—should attract a self-selecting group of founders[,] but I also suspect stressing nothing but the long odds, the sacrifices, creates a barrier to entry for entrepreneurs who don’t have role models or a support system around them.

 

And in an instant, Walk seizes on something that is as palpable as it is subtle: those startup entrepreneurs who have a positive role model and/or support system from which to draw confidence are inherently better prepared for the slog than those who do not. However, it’s worth noting that many successful entrepreneurs didn’t come from families of entrepreneurs. Rather, they had to make the jump themselves—into instability, increasing pressure, constant rejection—in order to see their drive and vision fulfilled.   

I got lucky; the support system I needed was already in place. I wasn’t aware that my road towards the startup world started long before I ever thought to explore such a path. As such, the long odds are almost normal for me, and the DIY punk attitude is something which has always been underscored in my life.

For others, though, Walk makes an astute point: those who come from different backgrounds—the people who might be the first entrepreneurs in their families, or who have had to surmount obstacles that some of us might not have had to contend with (race, gender, economics, etc.)—need to be aware that they may be able to draw upon support systems outside their personal experiences and upbringing. Such an awareness can change their perception of the long odds although the odds themselves do not change. Walk:

How do we help potential entrepreneurs understand the long road ahead of them while letting them know there’s a support system to help them? Frankly…it’s better that 1% too many people start companies than 1% too few because you never know…And maybe that first time doesn’t work but the second time does…

Walk’s point is palpable; the view that success might be only one failure away is something that becomes ingrained in an entrepreneur who has a support system to fall back on. That support system makes one resolute in the face of the long odd; something to be confronted and overcome, circumstances permitting.

Successful entrepreneurs understand that the long odds are just numbers on a screen that tell you all the reasons something isn’t possible. With the right kind of role model(s) and support system, the long odds become less a wall to avoid than a target to aim at. Perception is a powerful thing, and is a key factor in the spine and drive which one needs to embody to forge ahead.    

Cold Emails Are an Opportunity, Not a Chore

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Last week, Hunter Walk posted a short piece detailing a few calendar experiments he’d be trying this autumn. Amongst the challenges was a point which stuck out to me: his commitment to replying to any cold email at least once. This started a reflective thought process in my head on the heavy benefits of cold emailing.

I’ve Sent More Cold Emails Than I Could Ever Count

In my time and experiences within the music business, I’ve sent more cold emails than I could ever count; they’re virtually required if you want to start any sort of dialogue. In many industries (tech included), introductions through peers and contacts account for a large percentage of successful business relationships. Cold emails, however, work less often (excluding famous stories which have since become startup lore, like Box’s Aaron Levie cold emailing Mark Cuban and getting an investment). Many times, startup founders are lucky if they gain a response anywhere near Walk’s commitment to answer them at least once.

But in the music world, cold emailing is the norm; you better become very comfortable with it (and very good at it) if you want to get anywhere. You end up cold emailing artists, managers, promoters, bloggers/journalists, DJ’s, venues…the list goes on and on. You learn how to craft just the right sort of message that is equal parts fan and prospective business contact (and if you forget the fan part, you’ve majorly screwed up). Cold emailing becomes such a normal part of the overall flow that if you’re not sending at least a couple per day, you’re losing out.

The Benefits Far Outweigh the Drawbacks

Yet Walk’s piece reminded me of something different. We’re so used to reading posts about cold emailing written by the senders that many times the recipient’s perspective might go unnoticed. I’ve been on that end too.

I’ve had artists email me out of the blue asking for any number of things: a review of their new album, play on my radio show, feedback on their new single, advice about local venues, etc. And this is where Walk’s point hit home for me: it’s so easy to ignore cold emails (especially when there are mountains of them) that sometimes we can forget the opportunities which they can contain. Some of my best and longest lasting business relationships germinated from cold emails. It’s those solid, long-lasting relationships that have led to further opportunities in both the music and entrepreneurial spaces.

(It is of course relevant to note that cold emailing isn’t the only way to broach an initially unsolicited conversation. In my experience, there are any number of indirect methods that work just as well, if not better, than the cold emailing avenue. These, however, I think will provide fodder for a subsequent piece.)

Perhaps cold emailing in the music world is less overwhelming than it can be for tech angels or investors (which is both highly probable and understandable), but experience has taught me that Walk’s approach has benefits which far outweigh the drawbacks, so far as I can see. In opening his mind and palate up to what could be out there, Walk greatly increases his chances of striking upon a beneficial new contact and/or relationship. He does this because cold emails tend to go unnoticed or unanswered by some, and thus provide fertile ground for Walk to mine out new opportunities in an area all his own.

Where Some of the Greatest Opportunities Lie

Time-consuming though it may be, I think Walk’s proposed solution of setting aside 60-minute windows in which to go through these emails is precisely the right course forward. He is upfront about his limits (simply as a human with a life and a job) and does not set out to promise responses within a 24-hour period; everyone has a limited amount of time in the day and that’s just life.

Yet, when the opportunities are literally on your (digital) doorstep, I think the worst thing one can do is simply ignore them. In the music industry at least, one of the first things you learn is to look where no one else is looking. Taking the time to do so usually ends up being the best decision you can make; that’s where some of the greatest opportunities lie. I would be surprised if the same couldn’t be said for at least some level of the tech/investing space as well.  

Why Product Hunt’s Sophomore Effort Could Be Its Greatest Triumph

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In an insightful post yesterday, David Berkowitz postulated that Product Hunt might be suffering from startup fatigue as 2015 draws to a close. His presented graphs and statistics are all on point, and the analysis of said metrics is fairly fleshed out, and I’d say quite accurate.

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However, though I agree with Berkowitz on a number of points, I stand apart in questioning whether Product Hunt has fallen victim to ennui and achieved the “Mad Men” effect. While the metrics point to a decrease in overall activity (which you can see in Berkowitz’s original post), I’m not so sure that the postulation of trouble for Product Hunt is exactly right. Let me tell you why.

The Debut Album

Product Hunt debuted halfway through 2014, and I came to it late in that summer, somewhere between July and August. I had just enough time to familiarize myself with the site (and app) before the windfall from the 6+ million a16z-led A round really enabled them to start expanding rapidly on their product and offerings. This summer alone PH has released 3 betas (that I’m aware of), Games, Books, and Podcasts, along with its LIVE feature (which I quite enjoy). I’ve heard murmurs that some people think PH is throwing anything at a wall and seeing what sticks, rather than focusing on one specific vision. Not only is this a fairly correct observation, but it’s exactly the right thing for Product Hunt to do.

As I discussed in this twitter thread, I think that from ~June 2014 till now (~October 2015), we’ve seen Product Hunt’s first act; its debut album as it were. That’s the album that is either overlooked except by the core fans (Nirvana’s 1989 album, Bleach) or gets all the attention (Pearl Jam’s 1991 debut, Ten).

The data implies that Product Hunt is of the latter, and that the coming months will most likely continue to be somewhat challenging for the company. The fact that PH might well be a necessary utility for some (as Berkowitz now identified it as for himself) as opposed to a quirky, fun new thing is arguably irrelevant. The fanaticism that Product Hunt enjoyed over the last year may not last in its current form, but it does signal something greater, I think.

The Sophomore Effort

Continuing the music analogy, Product Hunt now finds itself in the studio after its debut success. The tour’s been completed, and as such, self-avowed PH fans wait for the next release, many hoping to see a redo of the initial popular effort. But PH has outgrown its debut skin, and is looking for something to keep its creative juices fresh. What the metrics really tell us is that PH is going through growing pains, trying to figure out just how many new instruments and styles it wants to try on its new album. Product Hunt’s sophomore effort will do two things: 1) it will likely alienate a demographic of general users who “like the old stuff, but not the new vibe,” and 2) solidify those of us who want to see PH keep growing and cultivating its community.

I discussed Product Hunt’s winning in community earlier this summer, and since then have only furthered my beliefs in such. This signifies one of the main distinctions that I think will come to play out over Product Hunt’s ecosystem: certain users will use it mainly as a necessary utility, while others aren’t exactly sure what to use it as, but are drawn to the intriguing dynamic nonetheless. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with being either kind of user; different strokes for different folks. But to be equally as clear, Product Hunt continues to succeed brilliantly because it attracts people like me; people who were not (are not) self-avowed die-hard tech product enthusiasts, but find it enticing anyway. I was never as much into new tech products and beta testing until I started using Product Hunt, and that’s exactly why it wins: it turns outsiders into insiders.

Some have begun to criticize PH for its commenting invites, and the exclusivity factor which they arguably perpetuate. But I think the minor exclusivity factor actually distracts from a much bigger inclusive factor. Product Hunt has succeeded in building the backbone of a community that is magnetic; it’s engaged, positive, and exciting for people who are open to new things.

Points of Discussion

In all this, Berkowitz makes a number of statements which I agree with, but analyze differently.

  1. Upvotes may not be the best measure of activity: This may in fact be true, but I’m not sure it matters as much as one might think. I see Product Hunt’s upvotes as proof of concept; people did want to see new products and share their impressions of them. But the upvote (and downvote, additionally) is a fairly one-dimensional interaction, and one I can see becoming less important to Product Hunt in the grand scheme. I don’t necessarily think they’ll get rid of it, but now that the PH team has planted the seeds of a truly interested and engaging community, those seeds are now germinating, and thus simple upvote metrics might not even be enough to truly capture the meaning behind those interactions.
  2. There could be a long tail effect: The prospect that lesser known products are doing better is possibly the best thing that could happen to PH in my opinion. What we could be seeing is the beginning of a democratization in the PH community, one where you don’t necessarily have to know someone influential to get your product some real traction. If I were part of the PH team, I would try to capitalize on this and figure out how to focus this dynamic; keep pushing the democratization without losing the high standard of quality.
  3. Perhaps Product Hunt is too slow in letting new people participate: I can see the validity of this point, and can see how it plays right into the “Product Hunt is about exclusivity” argument. There’s no quick and easy fix here, and I don’t think there should be. PH needs to retain its values and vision, even if that means it remains partially closed to prospective new users for a time.

    Notice, however, that I said partially closed; my best thought would be to let new users trickle in by giving them some access, a little at a time. Give them perhaps 5 comments every month until they gain full access. This could hopefully encourage them to use their comments wisely, and thus dissuade them from posting drivel or offensive material, while simultaneously allowing PH team members the necessary control to guide these new users.   
  4. Product Hunt is expanding into new categories such as games, books, and podcasts: This I don’t think is a problem at all; I think it’s an opportunity. Not every sub-category will be gold, but that doesn’t make it lead either. I quite like Books, and use it way more than Games (I’m not much a gamer). And though I’ve never been huge into podcasts, the new channel is making me rethink that. People will get different things from different channels, and there will be no way to see what’s really a success until a few more months pass.

    I do, however, think that PH has enough new things to keep its hands full (especially with the addition of the LIVE channel as well), and think it should focus on the irons it already has in the fire rather than continuing to add new ones.        

Berkowitz’s focus on the overall trends present in the graphs, though, is just one part of the story I think. Metrics are necessary things, but they can sometimes distract from possibilities on the horizon otherwise overshadowed by more dour trends. I think that’s the case here, where PH’s recent trends forecast a much more problematic stance than is actually there.

Cultivate the Community, Ignore the Noise

In the coming months, I can see Product Hunt becoming one of the popular contemporary examples of a company that arguably lost its “special sauce” after a great first year and successful Series A round. I anticipate articles to follow on TechCrunch, Re/Code, and to pop up all over Medium, as PH gets picked apart over its somewhat plateauing (if not declining) metrics. However, I caution against counting out PH too soon, and not focusing thoroughly on where they have situated themselves over the past year. Observers would do well to remember that PH is much more than metrics and trends; in fact, it’s mostly more than that. It’s community.

Keep throwing things at the wall, and experimenting with new instruments on the next album, and see what works. PH has already succeeded because their core fanbase is coalescing. Now they just need to nurture that base. Cultivate the community that any band or startup would kill for; that’s where the real power rests. When you leverage the power of your fanbase, the trends can go any way you want them to. All the rest is just noise. 

As for the Product Hunt team, my best advice to them were I to be asked would be to keep their heads down and just work. Acknowledge that this is the sophomore effort, and thus may irritate some of its debut supporters. However, this is the nature of the sophomore album, and could signal Product Hunt’s move towards the release of something even bigger than before. Whereas 2014-15 was Bleach, 2016 could be Nevermind. 

You Better Be a Punk

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I just finished reading Jason Calacanis’s post “You don’t have what it takes” with regard to starting a company. How hard it is to start a company, and how hard it is to keep a company going. And how it is to keep your team breathing financially, and make your company successful. And not just any company; a startup.

I was pointed to the post when Charles Jo tagged me on Twitter (though I would have read it eventually, as I follow Jason’s blog), and posed a thought process to me: “[S]eems similar to what I imagine musicians go through.”

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I let that postulation play through my head as I read Jason’s article, and tried to see if any of the advice and realities in it applied to new (most times) independent artists too. I reflected on my ~10 years of experiences in the music universe—as an artist, a journalist, a DJ—and of all the artists I know and speak to. And the finding of my thought experiment regarding those realities, is yes, they do. A lot.

Jason talks very bluntly about the pain that startups cause founders, and what kind of spine you need to have to soldier on through it. Startups are a bloodsport, and not nearly as easy, romantic, or chic as people might think after watching an episode of Shark Tank.

So in an effort to not simply reiterate Jason’s already well-made points, I’ll instead pose a different line of thinking. Before deciding that you have the spine to lead a startup company, take a moment and ask yourself a different question: Do I have what it takes to be in a band?

Do You Have What It Takes to Be in a Band?

Bands are fucking hard. And just like startups, they are way less glamorous than people think. Do you have visions of yourself playing Madison Square Garden, or accepting a Grammy as your song rockets up the charts? If so, you probably don’t have what it takes. Do you look forward to touring and watching as packed clubs mouth the words to your songs? You’re living in a dream.

Chances are most all the clubs you’ll play for the first year (or more) will be near dead empty, and no one will know (or care about) your songs. You’re more than super likely not going to have a “hit song,” and you pretty much for damn sure aren’t ever going to get anywhere near Madison Square Garden except when you’re buying tickets to see KISS play live.

You’re going to have a day job for the foreseeable future (forever?) and when you “go on tour,” you’re going to be sleeping in your crappy van, eating overpriced bar food (which you can’t afford), playing to people who mostly don’t care, and trying to raise a Kickstarter campaign for your next EP release, which again, no one cares about. You’re going to have to deal with being stiffed on your pay many nights, and your van will get broken in to and your gear stolen at least once.

This is just the reflection of the tip of the iceberg, and if any of this bothers you, then pack up, go home, and don’t even think about doing it. In fact, if this doesn’t excite you and make you hungry for more, then you don’t have the spine to be in any part of the music business other than as a fan and consumer.

You Need to Be Somewhat Masochistic

I’m convinced that you need to be severely masochistic on some level to want to be an independent artist, the same as if you want to lead (or be part of) a startup company. There are no breaks, and you shouldn’t want any, other than to eat, and call your parents and friends to tell them you still have a pulse. You should want to be thinking about work all the time because your work should excite you that much.

The real independent artists out there—the ones who you will probably go through your whole life never hearing about—know you won’t ever hear them, care about them, or help them. They do it anyway. They don’t wait for someone to hand them a great contract to get started, and they for damn sure don’t let hardships slow them down.

You Better Know How to DIY It Like a Punk

Just like being in a startup, how do you know if you have the spine to be in a band?

Here’s how: You know you’re going to do it, no matter what anyone else says, or tries to convince you of. You’re going to be a punk about it; you’ll DIY it the whole way through if you need to, but you’re going to do it. You’ll get down and dirty in the muck of all the things that could and will go wrong, and make your home in the palace of adversity. You’ll relish the challenge and ask for permission from no one to take on that next challenge that gives you chills.  And that’s it.   

Some may say that being too focused on your startup is living too closely to your passion, and can create large blindspots. In general, that can be very true. But you also can’t do a startup without that diehard passion. If you don’t want to tattoo your startup’s logo on your arm—if you figure you can just pivot to something else—you don’t have the drive and spine for either a band or a startup.

But if you can honestly think to yourself, “yeah, I’d definitely go on tour in a shitty van (which will break down), play shows to empty rooms, not get paid, and then spend money I don’t have on recording my next album” then maybe you can do the band thing. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you play; bring out your inner punk and see how stupidly masochistic that punk is, and just how badly that punk wants it.

The Continuing Money Troubles of SoundCloud

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Back in July, it was reported that German music streaming company SoundCloud was “running dangerously low on cash.” While this made barely a ripple in the mainstream news cycle, those in the tech and music industries were certainly paying attention, postulating how it was going to turn out. With ~$125M in cumulative funding, SoundCloud, which would be on its Series E for its next round, seriously can’t afford to be running low on cash; not now.

SoundCloud logo

SoundCloud logo

While ~$125M in funding is nothing to scoff at, one needs to examine the dynamics of where that funding is arguably going given SoundCloud’s precarious position at the moment. In the best of situations, the funding would be going towards furthering Soundcloud’s standing amongst its competitors, which now include Apple Music and Tidal in addition to Rdio and Spotify. And yet, the money is more likely getting sucked up by legal fees as the service braces for a round of massive copyright infringement lawsuits from major labels Universal and Sony. Anyone who knows anything about litigation knows that these cases will most likely take years to resolve, all the while drawing larger attorneys’ fees (not to mention time and effort) from the music service.

What the major label industry really looks like; The Big Three

What the major label industry really looks like; The Big Three

Warner is conspicuously absent from the intended lawsuits, no doubt because it’s the only one of the Big Three major labels to have struck a licensing deal with SoundCloud already (never mind the fact that Warner also owns 5% of SoundCloud..). While this may sound good for the streaming service on the front end, it actually complicates things even further, as it throws SoundCloud into the middle of two completely different paradigms with completely different dynamics. The reality of the situation is that SoundCloud has found itself alienating the very independent artists who were its biggest supporters since it signed the deal with Warner and began moving towards a more major label-style content service, akin to Spotify and Rdio. While this doesn’t mean that it’s dead in the water by any means, it does point to a larger issue which SoundCloud needs to figure out for itself moving forward.

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All of this puts in perspective the fact that SoundCloud can’t afford to be “running low on cash” right now. Now that they’ve entered the major label universe, they need a ton of cash just to continue playing the game, as they need to pay for licensing from Warner (and the other labels eventually), pay out royalties, and keep innovating ahead of their competition. That, in conjunction with their impending legal problems, makes this arguably the worst time to be running low on capital (as if there’s ever a good time!). The lawsuits by Universal and Sony aren’t going to go away overnight, and all those legal hours add up; that’s money that could be spent obtaining licensing rights and paying royalties that is now essentially being sucked out of SoundCloud’s system just so it can survive.

I don’t know what SoundCloud’s next step is going to be, but it needs to figure out a way to take the cumulative ~$125M it has in the bank (or whatever’s left) and figure out its legal quagmire before it does anything else. Otherwise, the legalities are just going to suck the life out of it while its competitors move ahead. That may be easier said than done, though, as it needs deals with the very people suing it in order to survive and be competitive. Could anything be more ironic?

The Birth of the Tech Investor Portmanteau

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A couple months ago, I examined a few tech investors through an artistic lens. This time I thought I’d let the word nerd in me out to play. Instead of deconstructing an investor’s creative Twitter, I thought a more literal approach would be appropriate here. And then it hit me: tech investor portmanteau mashups!

A portmanteau is a combination of words and phonetic sounds to form something new, like smoke + fog = smog. This being the case, I naturally wondered if the same dynamic could be applied to the tech investors we all know and love (and indeed it can be!). Thus the tech investor portmanteau is born. Because every badass tech investor needs a single-name moniker ;D

Investors:

1. Jason + Calacanis = Jalacanis (seed investor)

2. Hunter + Walk = Wunter (Homebrew)

3. Marc + Andreessen = Mandreessen (Andreessen Horowitz)

4. Ben + Horowitz = Borowitz (Andreessen Horowitz)

5. Fred + Wilson = Frilson (Union Square Ventures)

6. Chris + Sacca = Chracca (Lowercase Capital)

7. Aileen + Lee = Laileen (Cowboy Ventures)

8. Steve + Sinofsky = Stinofsky (Andreessen Horowitz)

9. Peter + Thiel = Teter (Founders Fund)

10. Sam + Altman = Saltman (Y Combinator)

11. Beth + Seidenberg = Beidenberg (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Buyers)

12. Josh + Felser = Jelser (Freestyle Capital)

13. Ron + Conway = Ronway (SV Angel)

14. Dave + McClure = DacClure (500 Startups)

15. Jessica + Livingston = Jivingston (Y Combinator)

16. Sarah + Guo = Guarah (Greylock Partners)

17. Marissa + Campise = Camprissa (Greycroft Partners, SoftBank Capital)

18. Brad + Feld = Frad (Foundry Group)

19. Morgan + Beller = Borgan (Andreessen Horowitz)

20. Chris + Dixon = Chrixon (Andreessen Horowitz)

Apple Disconnects

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Originally published on Marx Rand on June 18, 2015.

Sidenotes in the Independent Consciousness

Apple either refuses to, or simply can’t, understand the mentality of a huge growing customer base, that of the independent artist. This is going to present significant challenges going forward, since now that the Internet of Things is beginning to take connective shape, a new sort of revolution is getting underfoot—but without Apple’s involvement being required or wanted. Power breeds knowledge and knowledge breeds power: with the help of the world’s largest value network, the internet, the independents are beginning to have both.

Last week, Apple announced the release of its latest music platform, Apple Music Connect. [1] The product comes on the back of Apple’s shady dealing with independent artists: never mind the fact that the artist which Apple spotlit during the keynote was a manufactured act, it turns out they won’t get any of the precious royalties from Apple for the next three months anyway. [2]  While just 9% of college students say they are willing to shell out for Apple’s new music service, all these things are ultimately sidenotes in the grand picture of the independent consciousness anyway.

 

Simply an Attempt to Mollify

Apple made headlines recently with the release of its new music service Apple Music during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). While the presentation was panned by many for numerous reasons, there was one feature that stoked a range of discussions: Apple Connect.

Connect sat amongst a whole slew of cool new things that Apple announced it was releasing that day. (New, remember, does not carry the same weight in the post-Jobs era as it once did, when it used to be a synonym at Apple product launches for unprecedented).

Connect nonetheless seems like an attempt to mollify artists who have become increasingly disgruntled (which is exactly what I predicted before).

Low streaming royalty rates and complexities with the service in general have become a hot-button issue in the music industry lately, so everyone is presently searching in the dark for the magic potion to lead the blind to the place of worship. (Naturally, in such an environment, most preach what they claim is a slightly more purified version of the same stuff as their competitors have concocted already).

What is amazing is how few people are focusing on how irrelevant Connect will end up being as a tool for independent artists.

 

“Even unsigned artists” = “You’re still a secondary priority”

“Apple Music will be great for all artists,” the Cupertino, CA.-based one-time music industry disruptor claimed at the launch. Unfortunately, that’s not quite what independent artists heard Apple say.

“Even unsigned artists [will benefit],” was how Eddy Cue,  the senior vice president of Internet Software and Services for Apple, addressed the possibility for independent artists to use Connect. In other words, they were spoken to like second-class customers. Yet again. Cue might as well have intoned:

“You’re irrelevant and pretty much a second priority for us right now while we continue to fight the bigger media war that’s a lot more profitable with the major record labels on that other platform—the one we can’t seem to get off now that’s called iTunes!”

Try and put this in perspective for a minute: these artists are not in a perpetual minority anymore. They are now a rapidly growing segment of the music universe, and are actively looking for a place to creatively collaborate and build to their strengths, despite being ‘left of the dial’. And yet the words coming through the Connect presentation are basically reinforcing this “You’re nothing but an afterthought!” mentality.

 

The Great Irony

The result of all this is, ironically, that over the long term Apple will come out most shaken of all.

It’s barely days into the product launch of Apple Connect, and there are signs that this is the case already. The technology into which multi-millions of dollars were invested in the form of R&D and product sales and marketing, presently is sitting out there on the high seas, flapping like a half-full galleon with a split in the side of its sail, and no navigational map. The very people that Connect was built to serve Apple is locking out at the first port of entry.

iTunes is a great music library, but what is far too often taken for granted these days is the notion that because Apple disrupted the industry once, it will succeed in doing so again. The reality is that the concept of paying for music is now more elastic and ambiguous than it ever was before, and Apple needs to find a way to adapt. In that sense, the company appears more like Sony did in 1998 than it does any brainchild child of Steve Jobs right now.

Alienating a rapidly growing market segment worldwide is definitely not going to help Apple sail back into the balmy seas of yesteryear.

 

The New Apple Music Q&A Page

If you go to Apple Music’s information page and read through the questions and answers, two of them immediately stick out. The first of those two questions is:

“How do I get my music on Apple Music?”

Apple’s response is flat and corporate: “you can go through either your label/distributor or one of our approved aggregators.”

Screen Shot 2015-06-12 at 1.11.12 PM

Wow. Let’s take a moment to let that sink in.

Basically what Apple is telling the independent artists––who in a rising number of incidents have professed openly to rejecting major label offers voluntarily––is that they need to be a part of the established label/distributor paradigm in order to even have their music played on Connect.

Then there is the question of users having to submit through Apple’s “approved aggregators.” Apple seems reluctant to admit that increasing numbers of musicians are deliberately foregoing the major record label route (or even any label at all), and it looks here like they are trying to cover their bases a bit thinly by aggregating specific unsigned artists in what will be of a halfway house solution.

But what Apple misses is that when it comes to aggregation, the net result is the same for the artist: less creative control over the product, and more control for the gatekeeper. Anyway, even if there was a way to harmonize this risk, the question still lingers: who are going to be the appointed aggregators? Guys at Apple? Guys at major record labels? Now we’re back to square one.

The second question smacks of exactly this sort of highly-selective, industry buttoned-down approach:

“How can I get access to Apple Music Connect?”

Apple responds by providing a link to a Google News-style verification gate.

Screen Shot 2015-06-12 at 1.11.34 PM

Guess who’s in charge of the admission policy? Ostensibly it’s Apple of course, but it’s not a stretch of the imagination to think that major label brass might have a say in the outcome of who gets picked for Connect and who gets the door slammed in their face.

Now I know that many will say that verification is the only way to keep a service from falling to trolls or being overrun by artists who aren’t really serious. But the reality of it all is that trolls and non-serious artists will get through anyway—that’s just the nature of this business. (For a great example of this, look at all the marketing and spam that gets through Google News’ aggregator every day.)

 

The Upshot and the Bigger Picture

Apple is clueless about how independents will—or won’t—react to different innovations. They will wonder why they need to be verified, what “verified” even means, and who gets to decide. And why shouldn’t they wonder? They’ve pretty much spent their entire existence in the independent sphere marginalized and pushed aside by the major label dynamic.

The upshot is that if I’m an independent artist, Connect will essentially be the same to me as all the other services out there. What people need to understand is that the established music field of the music industry moves with a different rhythm and flow than the independent universe. Dynamics that are taken as gospel for the former do not necessarily apply to the latter. Independents have their own rules, and you can’t play their game without learning how they work.

But when it comes to Apple, the company is not even trying to do that.

 

Notes:

[1] The time articles in the piece reflect the original publication date of June 18, 2015.

[2] This policy has since been changed by Apple, while it stood true at the time of the article’s original date of publication.

 

Thanks to Alyssa Shaffer and Shelley Marx for reading early drafts of this.

YouTube Plays Out of Key

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Originally published on Marx Rand on June 11, 2015.

Since being embarrassed after some of the more litigious contracts it makes with independent artists using its platform were made public recently, YouTube is in damage-control mode. The media platform provider has  understandably taken a lot of heat as a result. Right now especially the video streaming service, which was purchased by Google nearly a decade ago for $1.65 billion, is in the process of trying to make nice with the artist community as it braces itself for the onslaught of Apple’s new music service release, Apple Music.

YouTube Has Music, But Isn’t About Music

It’s easy to see why YouTube is concerned about Apple Music. After all, the very same (music) community that in significant measure helped YouTube top $1 billion in revenue last year is just as likely, if not more so, to gravitate towards Apple’s serving of the pie as it is to hang out lapping up mainstream internet TV dinners.

For artists– and especially independent artists – YouTube could be quite a useful tool. At least, what the service is capable of offering should be something that sets YouTube apart from its competitors in the music arena, certainly.

But YouTube is still going to struggle to win in the artist arena for one reason: while YouTube has music, it isn’t about music. For YouTube, despite its cool analytics and humongous user base, is still not a music-centered service. This matters because, at the end of the day, artists are a focus, but not the focus.

With the online music landscape heating up, the services that are able to pay more attention to artists as a principle priority will be able to carve out a significant niche for themselves. In the face of such competition, no one else stands a chance. It’s that simple.

The Percentage Points

A big part of YouTube’s problem when it comes to appealing to independent artists is that it’s a victim of its own success. At the end of the day, YouTube has an overwhelming user-base of consumers (and not just of music, but of all sorts of media) that it needs to keep on satisfying – at last count, there were 23 million subscribers to all the various channels on the service. And that’s only the regular users.

Naturally, it makes sense for YouTube to see that its existing customers are well-catered for, but the reality is that such an approach falls far short of what’s acceptable when it comes to satisfying independent music makers and promoters. They can increasingly afford to be much more selective about what they desire and require from the digital distribution channels that they work with.

To compound YouTube’s difficulties with attracting the independents, YouTube still has in place the same tenuous clauses in the contract that upset the artists just recently. The fact that there are a large portion of artists who are currently unaware of this fact only makes the problem worse over the long run too, for the risk that another public embarrassment for YouTube looms large over the shiny brand image that parent Google has cultivated over the years.

There’s a more fundamental problem than any of this, however, and that’s the following: unlike the teenage makeup artists and tween clothing models that have made gazillions from leading their fans to new cosmetics brands eager to pay top dollar for all the eyeballs, the realistic revenue generated from YouTube for music artists is pretty much zilch when you do the math.

Information Is Beautiful, an analytics service based in the United Kingdom, recently published a breakdown of online revenues obtained by artists across a series of music platforms, namely Bandcamp, CDBaby, iTunes, Spotify, Deezer, and—you guessed it—YouTube. The analytics provider concluded that the percentage of independents able to eek out a minimum wage living on YouTube revenue streams was just 0.07%. Here are the screenshots of the YouTube portion:

Image courtesy of InformationIsBeautiful.com; with edits

Image courtesy of InformationIsBeautiful.com; with edits

Here are the pathetic revenue stream earnings for the signed major label artists:

Image courtesy of InformationIsBeautiful.com; with edits

Image courtesy of InformationIsBeautiful.com; with edits

And now, the revenue stream earnings for the independent artists:

Image courtesy of InformationIsBeautiful.com; with edits

Image courtesy of InformationIsBeautiful.com; with edits

That’s amazing – it’s a seventh of a basis point! In other words, it’s even lower than the cheapest commission charged on an online stock trading platform.

And remember, this is not 0.07% of all one billion dollars of YouTube users, or even 0.07% of all 20-something million YouTube subscribers we are talking about here; it is 0.07% of just all the unsigned artists who receive revenue from YouTube streams! It’s likely you can count that number on the fingers of your left hand while clicking over to the next song with your right.

The Discovery Dynamic

The overriding concern here is that the audience consuming the music of these independent artists is incredibly small. But before you leap to your feet and splutter out the old argument that this is because the music created by independents artists simply “isn’t good enough” or “needs to be curated,” step back and think about the fact that these independents are trying to compete on a platform which is essentially not constructed for them.

Though the dynamic of discovery is big on YouTube, it’s not specified to discovery of new independent artists at all (though it’s great for makeup and clothing brands, which adopts an entirely different sort of discovery process through media). As a result, artists end up competing with an amalgamation of other media – most of which is not music-related – and the poor comparative result they are left with ultimately diminishes any chance that there might have been left over of being properly appreciated or even recognized.

All of this adds up to one very simple reality: inasmuch as YouTube is trying to repair its relationships with artists (and independents among them), it is, at the end of the day, very far from being the be-all, end-all for independent artists that the platform is for other genres of media and entertainment. The fact that less than a tenth of a basis point of artists can eek out a minimum wage using the damn thing – while many other professionals in different walks of life make a lot more than that from five minutes of video stream – attests to this fact.

Thus, for all the potential scale and analytical sophistication that YouTube’s platform offers artists, it is still an ecosystem that is fundamentally unsuitable for them and for displaying what they create. And many of them know it now, too.

Independent Music Is Still  Wild West

The independent music market is very much a wild west, and the introduction of a new tool or a new feature isn’t going to win anyone over. To do that, you need to win the trust and confidence of the independent artists, the way Etsy did with hand-crafters, or even the way that Amazon has managed to do with its dominant share of literary readers and authors alike.

This process is not one in which you can achieve ubiquity by striking a deal with a major corporation which fundamentally only offers enhanced distribution such as a major record label. It’s one in which you need to go straight to the product source – in this case, the artists and their fans – and persuade each of them that what you are providing is somewhere they can interact on a creative level and where the music uncompromisingly always comes first. It should not and cannot be a place where their product looks and feels like an afterthought in the ravenous race to profitability.

The upshot – and the sad irony – of all this is that it’s yet another example of a situation in which one of the very same companies that is so adept at spinning creative mainstream entertainment out into the marketplace proves hopeless in creating a fresh and appealing approach to the rising independent music scene.

As Queen so eloquently put it, “another one gone, and another one gone … and another one bites the dust.”